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Employee in court for N7.6m fraud

A 30-year-old employee of a stock broking firm, Asogbon Gbenga, has been arraigned before an Ebute Meta Magistrate’s Court for allegedly conspiring with some other suspects to defraud a customer of N7, 625, 690.

Gbenga was said to have teamed up with Muhammed Bashur, 28; Nwoyi Samuel, 33, and some others still at large, to sell the customer’s stocks and convert the proceeds into a private account.

The police said Gbenga, a worker with Integrated Trust and Investments Limited located on the Marina, Lagos Island area of Lagos, called the Abuja office of the company and cloned the voice of a customer identified as Adeagbo Funke.

He was said to have requested that the stocks of Funke be sold and the proceeds sent to a Zenith Bank account number he had opened for the purpose of the fraud.

The money was said to have been sent to him.

After the fraud was discovered, investigation was said to have led to the arrest of the suspects.

The men were arraigned on four counts of impersonation, fraud and stealing.

The charges read in part, “That you, Asogbon Gbenga, being a worker of Integrated Trust and Investments Limited, 61, Marina, Lagos Island, Muhammed Bashir, Nwoyi Samuel, and others at large, between January 9 to Janaury 14, 2014, at Suit 3, Landmark Plaza, Ibrahim Babangida Way, Maitama, Abuja, in the Abuja Magisterial District, but triable in the Lagos Magisterial District, did present yourselves as one Mrs. Adeagbo Funke, a client of the company, and cloned her voice and gave mandate to one Omolola Aina, a worker with the company, Abuja Branch, through MTN telephone number, to sell her stocks and remit the proceeds to a designated Zenith Bank Account number fraudulently opened by you, and which was done, a representation you knew to be false.”

The police prosecutor, DSP P.O. Ugwumba, said the offences were punishable under sections 409, 378, 312 and 285 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2011.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to the offences and elected summary trial.

The magistrate, O.O. Olatunji, admitted them to bail in the sum of N500,000 each with two sureties in like sum.